


The Only Heaven He'd Know

by Ambrosia29



Category: The Walking Dead (TV)
Genre: Bittersweet Ending, Character Death, Execution, F/M, Grief/Mourning, Guardian Angels, Implied/Referenced Torture, Violence
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2016-03-25
Updated: 2016-03-25
Packaged: 2018-05-29 02:05:55
Rating: Explicit
Warnings: Major Character Death
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,344
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/6354463
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Ambrosia29/pseuds/Ambrosia29
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>Daryl faces his last night on earth. He's not alone.</p>
            </blockquote>





	The Only Heaven He'd Know

**Author's Note:**

> This was partially inspired by Happycookiieblog and Itsbethylness on Tumblr.
> 
> Sorry. This is incredibly sad. I really, really hope they don't do this in canon. Just couldn't get it out of my head.
> 
> Enjoy if you can. Reviews are welcome.

Dawn rose. The pale light barely made a dent in the dim confines of the cell. Brick by brick he’d counted them all. Nothing better to do. There had been no way out. He should know: he’d tried everything but the last thing he could. Time would tell if it worked.

She wouldn’t say. Or couldn’t. His eyes cut to her, sitting on the floor across from him. Her yellow polo was a dirty as he’d remembered, clean despite the long-faded bloodstains he’d left there. She pulled the grey sweater around herself a little tighter. He wondered if she was even really cold or if it was his own mind convincing himself she could be real.

Anything was better than the agony splintering his body.

She’d first appeared to him during the first beating. He’s taken it, used by now to the hard pounding of flesh beneath fist. Body breaking in pieces beneath other things. When he’d fought back they lit into him harder than before.

And he’d thought the old man had been cruel.

He looked at her now from beneath a long tangle of fringe, matted to his forehead and other places by the crusting blood. Some places, like his arm, itched slightly beneath the numb. Didn’t bother looking. Against his body’s better judgement he grimaced as she watched, extending his arm, forcing himself to slowly flex his hand. Open. Close. There was a slight grinding sensation and pressure, as though his arm were a filled balloon, skin tight on itself.

No doubt it was swollen, broken somewhere. She shook her head slightly, brow drawing together as she watched. Tears pricked her eyes and she slid her hand along the floor to place barely-there fingers on the toe of his boot.

They’d let him keep them, even after he’d kicked someone’s face in. They just beat him harder. More.

When they ripped his shirt open and he resigned himself to their designs she moved closer, kneeling in front of him. Providing him with a focus point. He stared into her eyes and fought to remain placid as they went to work on him.

She drew him into the world of her eyes and he could see the flash of sunshine, felt the barest ghost of her pressed to his back.

The flash ended and he was thrust back to the cold hard reality trying so hard to tear him down.

But she was still there. She was there when they grew frustrated. They left him alone in the cell and she was still there when he searched for a way out. She helped him search. To no avail.

His eyes blinked open and hard hands dragged him out of the darkness, away from her – but no, there she was, slipping out the door behind him, keeping pace.

That room again.

He could tell by the accoutrements they’d planned to get creative.

He was forced to kneel on the concrete floor, bruising already bruised knees. Not that it mattered. Hands and arms of a pair of nameless, faceless men at his sides today – or was it tonight? – were replaced by manacles and chains. They had too much slack to hold him upright. He was just so exhausted. So they let him sag into the chains, ripped off the remains of his shirt.

She took her place before him, kneeling before him. Her knees barely brushed his own, palms resting on her thighs and her face inches from his own. He wondered briefly why she didn’t touch him just before they went to work.

Again he let her draw him into her eyes. She kept him warm. Safe. It was different, this time around. He didn’t really go anywhere. He knew what was happening behind him. Who stood where and held what.

But it was distant. Didn’t matter.

Dimly he became aware of pressure, movement along the flesh of his back and he drew in a breath – the first reaction he’d shown them – and she reached out, he swore he felt the air shift, warm for a moment upon his lips though they never landed, holding him with her eyes.

He fell into them and it was like pressure building, his body – but not his body – thrumming with life, with sensation that built from a lightning storm in his belly and expanded outward, streaming through him like sunlight and out on a gasp and shaking breath. He saw nothing but her eyes but he felt the sunlight burst from him in an aurora of nameless sensation, leaving sweetness and the press of her name on his lips and tongue.

Her eyes. Those blue, sad eyes. Such tenderness. Such mercy.

The light grew patchy, blobs of green and pink and white and black roiling together until black consumed all. He did not fear it. He didn’t see her but he knew; she was with him.

He wasn’t sure if he could feel her or not. There was no feeling in the toe of his boot and she exerted no pressure.

The door opened again. She stood, moved beyond the ones taking him outside as if by rote. He was dragged away once again, but out into the dim light of dawn. His eyes scanned the scene, grey skies, blue paling with the coming dawn. Crisp feel to the air.

It would be autumn soon. It occurred to him she would have a harvest to take care of when it arrived proper.

Men and women gathered like acorns in a basket, all shouting. Obscenities. Expletives he’d heard over and over all of his life. Rough folks both clean and dirty gathered ‘round for the proverbial volleys they could throw at him. He supposed, in the back of his mind, that he deserved them.

Beyond those with their leashed violence he spotted her again. A flash of white, glimpse of her glittering blue eyes beneath pale blonde hair glancing at him over some strangers shoulder as she paralleled him. Stalking like she hunted through a wood of aggression, the calm center he’d taught her to be.

When he was carried up the platform she stood at his side, still silent. Her head tilted in gesture and he briefly noted the man stalking toward him. Felt himself again forced to ruined knees.

The madman raised the bat in his arms and she eclipsed him, moving to stand between them. The madman crossed behind them both and she knelt down to his level, eyes searching for his own, concerned. Sad. Hopeful.

He gazed at her and felt no more pain. His grief for her was at an end. She was here. Maybe she’d always been here. Maybe, she’d been waiting for him.

Her fingers brushed over his collar, up the sides of his throat. She was warm, like the sun he felt rising in the distance. Soft pressure like a breeze as she feathered her touch over his cheeks, framing him in her hands. She tilted her forehead to his and he met her halfway, the barest hint of a smile on his lips. She bit back a sob – or was it a laugh? – gave him a broken smile of her own.

Lips met his and she tasted so sweet, so warm. Felt them. He fell into it and her touch sent sunlight blinding across his vision, streaks of it like white fire across the sky. Her tongue tangled with his slowly and his heart burst with the joy of it, the sweet wet slide and taste of her. He drew her into his arms and she pulled back for a moment, smiling into his eyes. She brushed her forehead into his own like a barn cat marking her affection.

Her love.

They drew together again at the same moment and he reveled in her warmth like spring sunlight spilling across his body. Melded his to her welcoming own. A celebration and familiar conflagration between them. He promised himself, he would help her with the harvest this time.

If this was the only Heaven he’d know, he’d died content.


End file.
